Hello and welcome to a VERY special episode of Truth OR Myth Beta Canon, a Star Trek web series that dives into the history of any given topic using Beta Canon sources and my own imagination to fill in the gaps. In today’s episode, we’re taking a look at the Erebus Class of Section 31 Starships, to better understand its place in Star Trek History.
What makes this a very special episode is that the Erebus Class doesn’t actually exist, rather, I’ve taken a John Eaves concept design, re-skinned it and created an entire backstory for this class which I hope you’ll enjoy.
And Because this is just a little bit of my own fan fiction, all information relaid should pretty much be taken with a grain of stardust, and only considered a little bit of Star Trek Fun! And so, with all that out of the way, let’s begin.
Section 31, a rogue organization created by humanity at the conception of Starfleet itself. was Believed to be light years more advanced in technology the best starships of the line. Section 31 would amass its own fleet of starships in order to protect, what they believe to be the best interests of the federation.
But what do we really know about any of these starships? Section 31 answered to no one, created from a provision within the original Starfleet Charter, this organization would hide in the shadows and manipulate galactic events to the federations favor.
During the early years of Starfleet’s existence, Section 31 was small, and technologically inferior to the organization it had been sworn to protect, but very quickly, thanks to back alley deals and clandestine missions, Section 31 would not only grow, but end up with technology almost a century ahead of Starfleet.
During the first 100 years of it’s existence, Section 31 would prevent an Earth/ Klingon War, manipulate the Romulan Star Empire during the Earth/ Romulan War and even steer Starfleet secretly in to making first contact with several species that would quickly become member worlds of the Federation.
Of course to do all this, Section 31 needed their own starships, and to this end, would develop their own construction infrastructure in hidden locations through out Federation Space.
One of their main facilities of the time was a base at Altis Minor.
The Altis System was an odd one.
A Minerally Rich Star System surrounded by a class 4 Nebula, Altis was completely protected from sensor scans, which made it an ideal location for a Section 31 shipyard, and after manipulating the original exploration data on the Nebula, making it appear as though the Nebula and Altis itself was far too dangerous to explore, Starfleet would give the Star System a wide birth, allowing Section 31 to set up it’s facilities.
By 2240, Section 31 had a fleet of starships that rivaled Starfleets, yet most people with in the Federation, knew very little about the organization, or that it even had a fleet of it’s own. A situation which benefited the organization quite well.
The early 2240’s would see Starfleet itself set up it’s game.
Thanks to the breakthrough in Duotronics by Dr Richard Daystrom, Starfleet had begun to build a starship class the likes of which no one had seen before. Eventually known as the Constitution Class, this advanced powerhouse design would become the symbol of Starfleets Exploration and General curiosity for decades to come.
For it’s part, Section 31 wanted in on the new Duotronic Technology to create their own Class of Starship to utilize this amazing breakthrough, and thus the Erebus Class was born.
Sitting at a length of 202 meters and 11 decks tall, the Erebus Class would be designed to be operated by 104 officers and crew members.
Smaller then the Constitution Class, the Erebus Class would never the less be far more powerful then that design. This was thanks to various other technologies that Section 31 had acquired over the Century that they incorporated in to the design.
Section 31 would also adopt a Starfleet like aesthetic for this starship class right down to Starfleet naming conventions and registry style numbers. This allowed the starship to appear to the general public AS a Starfleet Vessel for various missions where the specific ship was required to appear as though they were actually a part of Starfleet’s fleet.
With a Standard safe cruising speed of warp factor 7 and an emergency speed of warp factor 9, the Erebus Class would one of the fastest starship classes for it’s time.
A brand new technology of the time, the Erebus Class would contain 7 Dual Phaser Emitter Banks. This new weapons technology allowed the starship to fire a continuous burst of Phaser Energy instead of the intermittent bursts that Phase Canons provided.
The Erebus Class would also contain a forward and aft torpedo launching system… Shields for the class were augmented with stolen Tzenkethi Technology, making them 20% stronger then the shields of the Constitution Class.
Taking the general appearance of a Constitution Class starship, the Erebus Class also contained 2 other technologies stolen from Species encountered in Starfleet’s Travels.
The first was a cloaking device, having thoroughly analyzed the Suliban Cloak captured back in 2151 by Captain Jonathan Archer and the crew of the NX 01 Enterprise, Section 31 had begun to incorporate the technology in to their early starships, and since then, had continued to develop the technology.
This allowed the Erebus Class to observe enemies unseen, and thanks to it’s very advanced properties, was completely impervious to enemies scans.
The second technology was one borrowed from the Romulan Star Empire… In 2154, Starfleet would encounter 2 Romulan Drone starships, with the ability to change their appearance using holographic projections.
Impressed by this technology, Section 31 would plan and execute a daring mission to steal the plans for technology from the Romulus itself, and were completely successful in that endeavor, with the Star Empire never realizing that Section 31 had even been there.
Again incorporating the technology in to their early starship designs, Section 31 would improve upon it, realizing one of it’s fatal flaws that had allowed the NX 01 to uncover the Romulan deception.
Even though the drone ship could appear as any other starship that the Romulans had had details scans of, the energy signature of the drone would give the ship away as it would not match the energy signature of the ship it was trying to appear to be, and so Section 31 would spend decades on this problem until eventually solving it, allowing their starships to not only appear as another ship but also scan AS that starship.
This meant that the Erebus Class could enter any enemies space posing as one of that enemies own starships. The benefit of this technology can not be over stated.
The Erebus Class would also contain specially designed infiltration equipment for it’s crew… Specially design stealth shuttles would be housed in it’s aft shuttlebay, and these shuttlecraft would also be equipped with their own small cloaking devices.
Launched shortly before the Constitution Class, the Erebus Class would become one of Section 31’s main starship classes for several decades, receiving periodical upgrades and refits through out it’s run.
But of course, as Starfleet Command began to make it’s own leaps and bounds in technology, as well as Section 31 acquiring more and more alien technology to advance it’s own goals, the Erebus Class would be finally decommissioned in 2281, having all it’s starships completely disassembled and reprocessed at the Altis Shipyard.
By the later part of the 23rd century, Section 31 and several of it’s rogue operations, had become public knowledge, forcing Starfleet Command to finally deal with the organization, the Federation Council demanding it’s complete disassembly. And by the turn of the Century, it appeared as though Starfleet Command had in fact ended Section 31’s existence.
But what the Federation didn’t know, was that the entire situation, from it’s exposure to it’s apparent destruction, had been a Section 31 plot itself.
Feeling that had become too exposed, with far too many Starfleet Officers knowing far too much about it’s existence, and fearing this exposure would prevent the organization from doing the job it had been created to do, Section 31 had manipulated the entire Federation to allow it to slink back in to the shadows, vowing to become far more of a secretive organization then it had ever been before.
Several of it’s older bases, facilities and starships were destroyed, with the Federation Council not realizing that Section 31 had already established far newer more advanced facilities through out the Alpha and Beta Quadrants.
And Section 31 as a whole, would disappear from everyone’s minds, believed to be a discarded remnant of a very early time in Starfleets History.
For over a century, their plan would work. Section 31 continuing to exist and manipulate Galactic events to the Federations favor. That is until one man would start his own quest to bring the organization to it’s knees, and eventually Section 31’s existence would come to an end, or at least, so we believe…
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Thank you for watching today’s episode of Truth or Myth Beta Canon, what do you think of the Erebus Class, and the bit of Fan Fiction I’ve created here. Would you like to see more videos like this one? Well leave your comments in the section below and don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel.
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